perspectivae del monte: Guidobaldo Marchese del Monte (1545-1607). One of the major works of the Pesaro–born mathematician, physicist, and Astronomer. Perpspectivae libri sex, is one of the most influential books on perspective from the late Renaissance. Galileo, a protégéof the Marchese del Monte, made reference to this book which, among others, was the first to describe the concept of the vanishing point.

brunelleschi’s camera obscura: Filippo Brunelleschi’s (1377-1446) attempted to come to terms with the representation of perspective on two-dimensional surfaces. To this end, he created a peep show box with a mirror that one would peek into with one eye. It served to show that one could not tell the difference between the picture he had drawn of the Baptistry in Florence and the actual view of that building from a certain point in front of the Babtistry. Removing the picture from the box allowed for comparison of the two. (See Paul Feyerabend’s Essay: Brunelleschi and the Invention of Perspective, in Conquest of Abundance, Chicago, London 1999)